Serving Two Masters

The difficulties of serving two masters are well known, whether they be G-d and Mamon or more pedestrian entities, such as a family and a career.

It is an aphorism in espionage that no one trusts a double agent, possibly not even the agent himself.

However, until very recently, this was the absolute sine-qua-non of being a working writer. to publish, you needed to please the editors/publishers. To sell, after that, you needed to please the public.

Of course editors and publishers would tell you that they picked the stuff that would sell. (Waggles hand.) Most of the time, the truth is that they either had no idea what the popular taste was, or stood at a dignified distance, shaking their heads at it.

There are exceptions. Baen, as always, in part because of the bar, where publisher, authors and fans rubbed elbows in equality, had a good inkling what its market was and hit it square on most of the time. The other houses were hazier.

For a long time, I think the tastes were congruent or close enough. But in the late twentieth century, with all the publishing houses in NYC, and all the editors coming from the same general background – usually liberal arts, prestigious college – and the business managers being corporate entities, divorced from the day to day running of the business and its consequences, the tastes became at times two very different things. This is where the editors came from who thought their job was to educate the public. (Hint – you’re supposed to SELL to the public. All else is secondary.)

Because I’m one of those writers who can do both “literature” (It’s not, but it can pass) and normal, fun books I quickly became aware that the public as manifest at signings, fan letters and the occasional offer to have my baby, liked the second kind. The editors (and a lot of agents) OTOH preferred the first. They wanted to feel like they were facilitating/publishing something “important.”

After a while I learned to walk the line. Put in just enough literary/historical references (a certain number seem to happen spontaneously) to sell the book to NYC and keep it fun enough to sell to the fans. All while – yes – trying to serve my inner drive and need to express a specific story.

Did I succeed? I often listed madly one way or the other.

In the brave new world where authors sell directly to the public, how will that change the character of the books? I don’t believe it means all writing will be drivel. Neither do I believe that all of it will be worthy. But I confess I’m very curious to see how things work out.

(I’m going to be en-route to Portugal for the next twelve hours or so, and after that my access to the net will also be erratic for about two weeks. I intend to keep up my daily posting, but the hours – particularly given my tendency to calculate time zones backwards – might become very interesting.)